Tonight in the Union Station Grand Hall, Indianapolis, the 2015 Gen Con EN World RPG Awards ceremony took place - and the winners were announced! Hosted by Mike Selinker, with guest presenters including Amanda Valentine, John Adamus, Kevin Kulp, and Matt McElroy, the ENnies this year were sponsored by DriveThruRPG and...

Into the Night, Into the Deep, and Into the Outside are three Numenera sourcebooks announced today by Monte Cook Games, describing outer space, under the sea, and interdimensional realms, respectively. The three books were announced today at Gen Con and form a new product line they're calling Into the Ninth World. The first (Night) will be Kickstarted on...

The Tome Show has a fascinating interview with WotC's Mike Mearls from Gen Con. He covered release schedules, licenses, conventions, errata, and more. He tells us that there has been an enormous influx of new players, and that the design philosophy is to "make fewer but bigger decisions." He...

Today at Gen Con, Paizo announced the adventure path slated for August 2016. Called Strange Aeons, it focuses on elder gods. Player characters suffer from amnesia, insanity will feature as a mechanic, and the author of the Necronomicon will be an NPC.
Whilst set in Golarion, this continues Paizo's exploration off the beaten track of fantasy RPGs. In the past, they've...

At the Titansgrave Gen Con panel, Wil Wheaton announced that there would be a second season of Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkania. The panel ended with a standing ovation. More info if I hear it!
Photo by Chris Pramas

This managed to slip me by (so thanks to Jeremy for the scoop!) From the people who brought you Tyranny of Dragons comes a new D&D 5E product - and it's already out! Southlands Heroes for 5th Edition is a book of character options including new races, archetypes and class variants, and character backgrounds. It's a shortish 29-page PDF in full colour.
Find it...

Morrus' Daily RPG News Updates

The Tome Show has a fascinating interview with WotC's Mike Mearls from Gen Con. He covered release schedules, licenses, conventions, errata, and more. He tells us that there has been an enormous influx of new players, and that the design philosophy is to "make fewer but bigger decisions." He also mentions that third party licence is still on the cards, but it's not what we expect (though I not sure what we allegedly expect!)

Tonight in the Union Station Grand Hall, Indianapolis, the 2015 Gen Con EN World RPG Awards ceremony took place - and the winners were announced! Hosted by Mike Selinker, with guest presenters including Amanda Valentine, John Adamus, Kevin Kulp, and Matt McElroy, the ENnies this year were sponsored by DriveThruRPG and Campaign Coins.

Today at Gen Con, Paizo announced the adventure path slated for August 2016. Called Strange Aeons, it focuses on elder gods. Player characters suffer from amnesia, insanity will feature as a mechanic, and the author of the Necronomicon will be an NPC.

This managed to slip me by (so thanks to Jeremy for the scoop!) From the people who brought you Tyranny of Dragons comes a new D&D 5E product - and it's already out! Southlands Heroes for 5th Edition is a book of character options including new races, archetypes and class variants, and character backgrounds. It's a shortish 29-page PDF in full colour.

Into the Night, Into the Deep, and Into the Outside are three Numenera sourcebooks announced today by Monte Cook Games, describing outer space, under the sea, and interdimensional realms, respectively. The three books were announced today at Gen Con and form a new product line they're calling Into the Ninth World. The first (Night) will be Kickstarted on August 5th.

Every year, the night before Gen Con starts, the Diana Jones Awards take place in a secret location in Indianapolis. Or, rather, one award - there's only one each year, selected by a secret panel of industry judges. This year's shortlist included College of Wizardry, Designers & Dragons, Guide to Glorantha, Mysterium, and Torchbearer. And the winner, announced last night, was....

The following is a collection of photos taken by various attendees, publishers, and others at Gen Con Indy - which officially starts today! These photos are mainly of Gen Con booths, some before the trade hall doors actually opened. Thanks to those who posted these pictures!

The new D&D monthly survey is up - it asks about last month's Unearthed Arcana psionics rules. Additionally, WotC reports on the results of the last survey about settings, classes, and races. It turns out that the top tier settings in terms of popularity are Eberron, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, and the Forgotten Realms, followed by Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer. Additionally, popular character types were led by the artificer, shaman, and alchemist; while the most popular races were thri-kreen, goblin, and aasimar.

Lists of anticipated Gen Con releases are popping up around the web, so I thought I'd join in with my own. What's the worst that can happen?* What's below are the items I'm most looking forward to. Not being at Gen Con, I'll have to order them after the convention, so if you're there and you pick up any of the following items - I'm jealous! These are not in any particular order. Well, they are in a particular order, or else they couldn't be on the page, but not a deliberate particular order. My list is probably very similar to all the other lists, but with all this awesome stuff coming out the odds on that happening are kinda high.

Technically, Gen Con doesn't begin until Thursday, but many publishers and fans are already in Indianapolis or en-route. Gen Con, as you may well know, is North America's largest tabletop gaming convention. Over the next week I'll be sure to share any scoops I hear of regarding your favourite roleplaying games, so keep an eye on this news page. Plus, of course, on Friday night the ENnies take place! I'll be posting the list of winners as soon as the award ceremony finishes.

New for EN World EN5ider patrons! Expand the list of weapon properties to include barbed, double, awkward, tripping, and more! Along with nearly 20 new weapons designed to use these new properties, and changes to the entangling and reach properties, this article will unlock the potential of weapon design and introduce more variety into your fighting style! By Connors; illustrated by Jacob Blackmon.

Coming soon from WiKids are the official licensed Rage of Demons miniatures. Here's a quick look at three of them - the invisible blink dog, the air mymridon, and the the drow scout. These come in the Icons of the Realms series.

[Promoted thread] City of Brass from Embers Design Studio launched over the weekend. I've mentioned it before - it's a suubscription-based web-based campaign management platform which successfully Kickstarted a few months ago and has just finished a beta period. System-neutral (although with some included data for various systems) it features builders for worlds, characters, NPCs, monsters, stories, and campaign management. Current supported (i.e. pre-loaded, though you can add your own data freely, so the platform handles any system) rulesets include D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, Fate,d20 Modern/Future, and What's O.L.D. is N.E.W. What's below is Ember Design Studio's Lucas Currel's own post, as he describes it in far more detail than I ever could!

Gen Con is coming! It's like Winter, except the swarm of invaders are all alive and very warm, and while there will be mass carnage and devastation, it will primarily happen at thousands of game tables. Well, sure, the carnage at the restaurants will also be pretty spectacular, too. Scotty's Brewhouse is one of my favorite haunts, and apparently that opinion is shared by many thousands of my fellow gamers. There are hundreds of food sources in downtown Indianapolis, and nearly all of them go out of their way to welcome Gen Con folks in some way. It's actually pretty impressive. For those will be there, do try and find me and say hello! I'll primarily be hanging around the Pinnacle/Studio 2 booth. If you cannot make it, please game on and enjoy the spirit of it all from wherever you are. I don't leave until next week, though, so let's get down to the Picks for this week...

If the table of contents wasn't enough, here's a look at Primeval Thule's Beastman - well, two pages of it. You'll notice that the stat blocks aren't in the same format as WotC's (that's the case with most third party 5E products). (thanks again to Fabrício for the scoop)

If you're curious about what you might find inside Sasquatch Studios' Primeval Thule pulp-fantasy setting for D&D 5th Edition, look no further! Below you'll find the entire table of contents. Not heard of Primeval Thule? Check out my original scoop here! This will be a D&D 5th Edition version of their Howard/Lovecraft inspired Primeval Thule campaign setting which already exists for Pathfinder, 13th Age, and D&D 4E, by the company which produced Princes of the Apocalypse for WotC. (thanks to Fabrício for the scoop)

There are now three large hardcover adventures for D&D 5th Edition. There's the two-part Tyranny of Dragons campaign produced by Kobold Press; there's Princes of the Apocalypse, from Sasquatch Game Studios; and there's the imminent Out of the Abyss, from Green Ronin publishing. All of these are official, hardcover adventures produced for WotC by third party companies. But how does that actually work? What is the relationship between the company producing the products and the company publishing them? WotC's Jeremy Crawford told me yesterday that the term "outsourcing" is innacurate when it comes to describing this arrangement.

[Promoted post] The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is an official upcoming sourcebook from WotC. More accurately, it's the first official 5E setting book from WotC! "Get everything you need to adventure in the Forgotten Realms on the exciting Sword Coast, home to the cities of Baldur’s Gate, Waterdeep, and Neverwinter! A collaboration between Green Ronin Publishing and the Dungeons & Dragons team at Wizards of the Coast, the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide provides D&D fans with a wealth of detail on the places, cultures, and deities of northwestern Faerûn." Set for release November 3rd, this will be the first official setting book, and is timed to release along with the Sword Coast Legends video game.